SII

SII announced that a vaccine candidate for the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 2,000 people in China since its outbreak in December-end, is expected to progress to human trial phase within the next six months. SII is the world's largest vaccine manufacturer by a number of doses produced and sold globally, with more than 1.5 billion-doses so far.

The British drug maker also reached a $750m agreement with Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) and Gavi to support the manufacturing, procurement and distribution of 300 million doses of the potential vaccine, with delivery starting by the end of the year.

"Our team has been working closely with Dr Hill from Oxford University, and we are expecting to initiate production of the vaccine in 2-3 weeks and produce 5 million doses per month for the first 6 months, following which, we hope to scale up production to 10 million doses per month," Serum Institute India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla said.

The Cyrus Poonawalla Group, owner of world’s largest vaccine manufacturer Serum Institute of India, has sold its Czech Republic-based Praha Vaccines to Novavax for $167 million, helping the US biotech firm significantly expand its vaccine capacity.

We need to be very clear, this is not a 100% solution and cure. Maybe 60-70% of people who take the vaccine will have that protection, the rest may still get the disease despite being vaccinated,” said Poonawalla, adding that the economic danger of the outbreak is exponentially greater than its health risks.

Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, will soon start clinical trials in the country to test if tuberculosis vaccine VPM1002 is effective as a preventive and immunity booster vaccine against Covid-19.

The western societies which had led the smear campaign are those turning most fervently to the same labs for deliverance. Hope has taken the shape of an 82-year-old TB vaccine, BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) –whose effectiveness in its primary role happens to be iffy.

India must view this crisis as an exercise in building institutional and governance capacity — in particular, by leveraging five opportunities that can position it as a model to emulate in post-Covid-19 recovery and growth.